By DJ Astrocreep
Another short hop across to Manchester gets me my first review gig in a month in the form of Indian folk metallers Bloodywood with a couple of top notch support bands. A quick bite to eat and couple of drinks pre-gig put me right in the mood to head across to the venue and grab my perch for the ensuing metal madness.
First up are symphonic death metal outfit Demonic Resurrection, on their second visit to Manchester. Having been lucky enough to catch their previous visit over at Aatma not much before Covid came about, I was interested to see how they would fare in both a bigger venue and as main support. The crowd is busy from early, with a mosh pit kicking off not long into their set, while the bouncing along during their last song of the set shows just how well they are doing. They sound excellent in the old building, very humble and tight as all hell, providing an excellent opening set for the evening.
Calva Louise come on to the busy room and a level of uncertainty on the crowd, though that quite quickly dissipates as they get into their set. They’ve come on leaps and bounds from when I first remember having caught them live in Gorilla, a venue almost a third of the size and a mere 30 seconds walk from tonight’s entertainment.
So far unreleased track ‘Tunnel Vision’ is a standout in amongst some excellent songs, with Jess proving she can scream alongside her positively dreamy clean vocals.
Their sound has improved immensely from what was already pretty good, albeit a lot more alt rock then rather than today’s more metalcore infused sound, showing a good strength and resilience in the band to change to a sound more suiting for themselves. The crowd are moving and cheering loudly by the end of the set, well won over and rightfully so, given how monstrous their performance is. The bar is set extremely high for our headliners to live up to.
Headliner time and Bloodywood have been gigging hard since we last saw them back in 2019. There has been a definite step up with what was already a pretty good stage presence, though having a much bigger stage has probably helped with that too. The crowd are going absolutely mental right through and understandably so, given we get “the fire and the fury of the third world” from the band. Both sides are absolutely relentless in the love and energy being thrown at each other and it shows throughout. Whether it’s mosh pits, bouncing or singing along, the sheer passion from the crowd reverberates everywhere.
The band themselves show no tour weariness, with the sound being one of the best I remember hearing at the venue, though a perch behind the sound desk instead of at the side of the stage may have had a level of impact on that. No sight nor sound of dropped notes, the playing is immaculate and the once again capacity crowd adore every minute of it. The lighting and sound techs absolutely smash it, too, with both doing an excellent job of enhancing the performance, performing their roles admirably.
When it comes to the set, the band do a good job of mixing both albums into the mix. The main set is an even split between both, while the one song encore, breakthrough single ‘Gadaar’, slightly edges the setlist towards the older of the two. It’s nice hearing such a mix and seeing how the crowd goes absolutely for it for almost everything, old and new, and not something you tend to get as much with newer material – a testament to the cult like following the New Delhi metallers seem to be acquiring.
Despite being pushed by two highly talented support acts, they smash it out of the park. An hour long set of exceptional folk metal that will have bigger venues still sold out in the near future.